Benghazi mastermind convicted of terrorism, acquitted of murder

WASHINGTON — A federal jury convicted a Libyan militia leader of several terrorism-related charges on Tuesday but acquitted him of all murder charges in the 2012 attacks that killed four Americans in Benghazi, a partial success for U.S. efforts to prosecute accused terrorists in civilian courts.

Ahmed Abu Khatallah was found not guilty of murder in the armed attacks on a U.S. diplomatic mission and nearby CIA station that killed the U.S. ambassador to Libya, J. Christopher Stevens, and three other Americans.

Republican critics long charged that Hillary Clinton, then secretary of state, had failed to provide adequate security for the mission, had ignored warnings of likely violence, and failed to respond swiftly to the coordinated assault.

Multiple congressional and State Department investigations found the charges untrue, but Benghazi became a political flashpoint for Clinton’s opponents, including Donald Trump, before and during the 2016 presidential race.

During an eight-week trial in federal court here, jurors saw gritty surveillance videos and listened to emotional witness accounts of how armed men suddenly stormed the lightly guarded U.S. compound in Benghazi late on Sept. 11, 2012.

Videos showed militants kicking in a door and carrying gasoline that was used to set the compound on fire. They also could be seen grabbing documents that prosecutors say were used to pinpoint the location of a secret CIA compound about a mile away.

Stevens and another U.S. diplomat, Sean Smith, died in the fire, and former Navy SEALs Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty were killed later that night in mortar attacks on the CIA annex.

Khatallah, now 46, was a leader of the Ansar al Sharia militia, one of the Islamist groups that fought to depose Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi in 2011, and had spent time in Gadhafi’s prisons.

After the 2012 attacks, he kept a public profile in Benghazi, even giving media interviews to talk about the raid.

In mounting their case against Khatallah, U.S. prosecutors had to acknowledge that he wasn’t at the U.S. mission or CIA outpost when the shooting began, and did not set the fires or shoot the mortars.

Instead, they described him as an extremist who hated Americans and cited an array of circumstantial evidence to argue that he had masterminded the attacks.

They presented testimony from informants who said Khatallah had called for a strike on American spies during a meeting at a mosque in Benghazi, and cited phone records that showed Khatallah receiving calls just after the attacks began.